


Whatever Love Means

by RosiePaw



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has a question.  It's not one John wanted to hear the night before their wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Love Means

It might not have been the traditional way for a couple to spend the night before their wedding, but when had tradition ever applied to them?  John had laughingly refused Greg Lestrade’s suggestion that John should spend the night at _his_ flat and rely on Mycroft’s considerable resources to ensure that Sherlock made it to the registry office on time the next morning.

No, John wanted to spend this night as they had spent so many others, wrapped in each other’s arms, their legs entangled, breathing each other’s scent in what John had long since stopped thinking of as “his” bed and started thinking of as “theirs.”

On the verge of making the transition from post-orgasmic haze into sleep, John murmured a very traditional phrase against Sherlock’s sweaty neck, only to have Sherlock respond petulantly:

“What does that mean, anyway?”

“Sorry?”

“The verb you just used, John.  People apply it indiscriminately to food, clothing, crap telly shows, holiday destinations, their jobs, pets, family members and romantic interests.  Surely they don’t mean precisely the same thing by it in each case?”

Some sort of Sherlockian humour, John surmised.  He smiled as he answered, “Obviously not.  But if _you_ don’t know what it means, why are you marrying me tomorrow?”

“I’m not.”

John blinked awake and started to sit up.

“We’re registering a civil partnership,” Sherlock continued.

John relaxed back against Sherlock’s side.  Trust Sherlock to nit-pick the semantics.  “Right.  And the reason you’re registering a civil partnership with me is...” he trailed off invitingly.

“So you won’t leave, of course.”

“Of course.  Because then you’d have to make your own tea and do your own shopping,” said John, the sarcasm tempered with fondness.

Alas, Sherlock wielded sarcasm with far more skill than he detected it.

“I could persuade Mrs. Hudson to do the shopping.  But the tea tastes better when you make it than when she does.  You also cook and wash up, and you do all these things without being as intolerably annoying as most other people would be.”

John had never believed the “sociopath” diagnosis, but it had always been evident that Sherlock had difficulty understanding emotional states.  Still, Sherlock was brilliant and gorgeous and being with him made John feel alive.  John had thought he’d come to know Sherlock well enough to tell that Sherlock really cared for him.  Now he considered that sometimes, people believe things simply because they want them to be true badly enough.

“Also, your medical knowledge is useful at crime scenes, your combat experience is more generally useful...”

“And my medical knowledge often comes in useful again after we get home from the situations in which the combat experience was useful.”  John’s voice sounded clipped and tense to his own ears, but Sherlock either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Precisely.”  Sherlock allowed him an approving nod.  “As you’ve just demonstrated, you’re not entirely unintelligent.  And the sex is good.”

John climbed out of bed and began hunting through the clothing he’d discarded so hastily earlier in the evening.

“You put it on the dresser before you took your jeans off,” said Sherlock from the bed.  

“Ta.”  John grabbed his mobile and started scrolling through numbers.

“Whom are you calling?”

Damn, he couldn’t find the number.  He’d have to go on-line and google their site to get it.  “The registry office.”

“John, it’s 11:47 PM.  They’re closed.”

“I don’t need to speak with them, Sherlock.  I just need to leave a message cancelling our appointment.”  John pulled on his jeans.

“Why are you getting dressed?”

Because I don’t want to continue this conversation naked, John thought.  “To go downstairs and find the goddamn number.”

“020 7641 1162.  John?”

“What?”  John snapped.

“I thought you enjoyed the sex.  You never fail to reach orgasm, and the average length of your orgasm is...”

Even when he was shaking with anger, John’s aim was dead on.  The mobile nailed Sherlock square between the eyes.  John caught a glimpse of Sherlock’s surprised face as he turned to stomp out the bedroom door.

Sherlock, however, had good reflexes and long legs.  John hadn’t taken three steps before Sherlock managed to get past and then in front of him, long, slim hands reaching to grab John’s shoulders before something – John’s stance? – reminded him that grabbing an angry combat veteran might not be a good idea.  But Sherlock’s hands remained outstretched, as if trying to grasp the air.

“We don’t have to have sex, John.  And the crime scenes make your limp go away.”

“Sherlock, this isn’t about either the sex _or_ the crime scenes!”

“Fine, then you don’t have to do either.  Or the tea or the shopping...”

“Or the cooking or the washing up?”

“You don’t have to do anything.  Just... stay.”

“ _WHY?_ ”  Christ, he hadn’t meant to yell that loud.  Mrs. Hudson must be getting an earful.  To say nothing of Mrs. Turner and her “married ones.”  John scrubbed at his face and took a breath.  “You can’t give me even one decent reason, Sherlock.”

“No, I can’t.” Except for the reddish mark between his eyes, Sherlock’s face might have been carved from bone.  “I can’t, John.  But if you leave – it will be worse than cocaine.  So I wanted you to stay.”

Wait, what?  But Sherlock was already turning away, vanishing into his own dark bedroom with its long-unused bed.  God knows the last time the sheets had been changed.

Cocaine withdrawal.  Agitation and restless behavior, depressed mood, fatigue, generalized malaise, increased appetite, vivid and unpleasant dreams, slowing of activity – and always, always, the craving for more cocaine.

John knew, from conversations with Mycroft, that Sherlock had been through rehab twice unsuccessfully.  He knew, from Lestrade, what it had taken to motivate Sherlock to make a third attempt – and just how close Sherlock had come to failing despite that motivation.

He also knew that while the physical symptoms of withdrawal might last months, the psychological cravings persisted for years.  Sherlock undoubtedly still experienced them, assuaged them – how effectively or otherwise, John had never known – with nicotine patches, experiments and crime scenes.

A former addict who’d been one of John’s patients for a while had compared cocaine to a woman you can marry but never divorce with any finality.  “‘Til death do us part,” he’d joked.  He was dead less than a year later, having tried to silence the cravings’ siren call with an unfortunate mixture of benzodiazepines  and alcohol.    

 _Worse_ than cocaine?

Sherlock had left his door partway open.  John slipped in silently.  Light from the street filtered in dimly through the curtains.  Sherlock had stripped the blankets and sheets off the bed, wrapped himself in them like a cocoon.  A few dark curls poked out at one end.

“You think you’re addicted to me,” said John into the darkness.

No response.

“You want us to get married...”  There was a loud sniff from the cocoon.  “ _Registered_ because if I left, you think you’d go through withdrawal.”

“Don’t condescend to me, _doctor_.  I don’t _think_ , I _would_ go through withdrawal.  I have more experience of it than you.”  Sherlock’s voice might be muffled, but his irritation was crystal clear.

John sat on the bed and reached out to locate one thin, blanket-covered shoulder.  Sherlock tensed but did not pull away as John began to rub, his hand moving in slow circles.

“Yes, you do.  Too much experience, perhaps.”

Another sniff.  God forbid that Sherlock Holmes should admit there might be such a thing as “too much” experience.  And yet Sherlock _did_ readily admit that personal relationships were “not really his area.”  He had, John reckoned, too much experience with some types of overwhelming attachment, not enough with others.  There were too many words for which Sherlock’s only frame of reference came from hearing other people use them.

John stood again to slip off his jeans.

“Here, budge over.  And share out the blankets, would you?  If we’re getting registered tomorrow...”

“Today.”

“I need some sleep.  Come on.”  John found the ends of the blankets and tugged until Sherlock allowed himself to be partially unrolled.  If Sherlock still had the greater portion of the covers, John had at least enough to be going on with.  He crawled under, snagged a pillow – there were two, both abandoned and ignored by Sherlock – and closed his eyes.

Tension hummed off Sherlock like a high-voltage electricity line.

“John?”

“Mmmm?”

“You said you needed ‘one decent reason.’  Addiction’s not generally regarded as decent.”

“Perhaps not, but at least I know you’re being honest.  Addiction’s a better reason to give than love if you don’t know what the word ‘love’ means.  There are some fine distinctions between the two, but we’ll have time to sort those out, seeing as how I’m _not_ leaving.  You don’t have to worry about...  Sherlock, stop wriggling.”

“I’m unrolling more blanket.  There’s too much of it between us and not enough over you.”

“More to go around if we lay closer together,” suggested John, and smiled as he Sherlock pulled him in very close indeed.

There was, John realized, one small detail still unattended to.  He stretched up to kiss the spot between Sherlock’s eyes.

“Kissing the hurt better, doctor?”  Sherlock’s voice rumbled against John’s chest.

“It’s traditional,” said John.


End file.
